September 2013 Version 1.7

Transcription

1 September 2013 Version 1.7 1

2 Table of Contents 1 What Problem Are You Trying to Solve? Account Set-Up Settings > Account > Schedule Audit Settings > Projects > Project Attributes Settings > Projects > Project Status + Health Settings > Basecamp Create and Publish Projects Tab Views What Happened Last Week? Cross-Portfolio Completed or Past Due Tasks Cross-Portfolio Actual Time Spent Cross-Portfolio Scheduled to Work X But Only Logged Y Hours Individual Project All Activity Individual Project Actual Time Spent What Should Happen Next Week? Cross-Portfolio Tasks Due Within a Week Cross-Portfolio Resource Availability How Do We Improve? Project Reporting Resource Forecasting Compare Planned vs. Actual vs. Projected Resource Forecasting Increase Precision Resource Forecasting Find By Availability Improved Project Planning Using Templates Users, Resources & Roles Who Should Be a Roadmap User? Project Roles What Are Work Items?

3 1 What Problem Are You Trying to Solve? At the risk of oversimplifying, below are the most common problems Roadmap users are trying to solve. The level of effort and corresponding value increases with each. Lower Effort Higher Effort What happened last week? What should happen next week? How do we improve? Lower Value Higher Value The remainder of this document provides how-to s and advice to solve the problems above. Things unique to Basecamp are called out. 3

4 2 Account Set-Up 2.1 Settings > Account > Schedule Audit Enable Schedule Audit (Pro only) to provide a visual audit trail of data changes that cause the project delivery (end) date to slip. A companion feature is the Schedule Accuracy column on the Projects Tab. Additional References - Help article: Schedule Audit 4

5 2.2 Settings > Projects > Project Attributes Think a moment about how you would use a spreadsheet to organize a list of all of your projects. Project attributes are the columns your spreadsheet. Roadmap supports several project attribute types: Selection. Create drop-menu list of items. Text. Provide long or short text fields with default text entry. Number. Set a default value and minimum / maximum range. Percentage. Set a default value and minimum / maximum range. Currency. Set a default value and min / max range. Uses account-wide symbol. Date. Dates independent of project schedules (e.g. program reviews) Yes / No checkbox. Set a default value and color of unchecked or checked. Additional References - Video tutorial: Custom Project Attributes (2:52) 5

6 2.3 Settings > Projects > Project Status + Health Customize your project portfolio by editing or creating project status + health combinations that align with your organization s process. Some definitions: Project status. Top-level description that indicates whether the project is Active, On Hold, Future (planned), or Closed. Project health. A subset of project status. For example, a Future project could have a health of Approved or Not Approved. When editing or creating a new status + health combination you have the option to exclude resource assignments from forecasting calculations and the Resource 360 page. This may be useful if you are constructing a pre-approved project. Additional References - Help article: Project Status + Health 6

7 2.4 Settings > Basecamp Roadmap supports one Basecamp and one Basecamp Classic account simultaneously. Select Continuous import & real-time export for sync settings to provide the highest probability the two systems are in sync. Because Basecamp does not support start dates (for to-dos) or estimated time effort to complete the task, you can enter that information in Basecamp. Just be sure to enable Roadmap projects to recognize the data upon import. Additional References - Help article: Enter Resource Forecasts in Basecamp - Video tutorial: Managing Resource Forecasts from within Basecamp (2:59) 7

8 2.5 Create and Publish Projects Tab Views Create and publish views that include any custom project attributes plus columns such as Client, % Complete, To-Dos, Planned vs Actual vs Projected, Project Health and Previous Project Health. If you do not use milestones in your projects, include the Milestones and/or Work Items columns. Work Items combines milestones and to-dos in the column. Publish views to other users. Additional References - Help article: Customize the Projects and Dashboard Tabs 8

9 3 What Happened Last Week? 3.1 Cross-Portfolio Completed or Past Due Tasks Go to Projects Tab Display Preferences settings and: - Set Milestones and To-Dos columns check Show Completed (A). - Set Milestones, under Work Items column, to display Most Recent & Next (B). That will make sure the most recently completed milestone is always displayed. - Check Display dates & responsible parties (C) so that the responsible party and the due date are visible. Past due dates are displayed in red. 9

10 3.2 Cross-Portfolio Actual Time Spent Filter by Last Week (and other timeframes), Resource(s) or Roles Drag-and-drop column headers to create sub-totals Export to Excel 3.3 Cross-Portfolio Scheduled to Work X But Only Logged Y Hours Use Planned vs. Actual view with a custom date range in arrears and compare planned hours vs. actual logged hours. 10

11 3.4 Individual Project All Activity Sort by Time Stamp, Type, Description and Resource Changes made in Basecamp and then imported to Roadmap are labeled as such 3.5 Individual Project Actual Time Spent Filter by Yesterday (and other timeframes), Resource(s) or Roles Export to Excel 11

12 4 What Should Happen Next Week? 4.1 Cross-Portfolio Tasks Due Within a Week Go to Projects Tab Display Preferences settings and: - Set Milestones and To-Dos columns to Due Within a Week (A). - Set To-Dos, under Work Items column, to display Due Within a Week (B). 4.2 Cross-Portfolio Resource Availability View by Availability Calendar or Availability Grid Filter by Resource(s) or Project Role(s) Use pre-built Timeframe or move slider all the way over use custom date range 12

13 5 How Do We Improve? 5.1 Project Reporting Use Schedule Audit (Pro only) so you can display the Schedule Accuracy column, which includes metrics such as schedule accuracy (%), planned & projected project due dates, and the number of changes to the project due date. Compare Planned vs. Actual (Plus and Pro only) effort and export to Excel if you want to calculate the difference. Use Trailing Project Health to show the previous health and how many days ago it changed from that to the current health. 13

14 5.2 Resource Forecasting Compare Planned vs. Actual vs. Projected Planned vs. Actual vs. Projected (Plus and Pro only) column provides a sortable, visual comparison of projects. Projected value helps to anticipate resource utilization. 5.3 Resource Forecasting Increase Precision Forecast a resource s project management time separately from project task assignments (see screenshot above). Forecast non-project activities (e.g. customer support or technical support roles). Add company holidays and individual resource vacations to the Team Calendar. Change the workday length to more accurately reflect administrative tasks, nonproject meetings, etc. Create part-time resources 14

15 5.4 Resource Forecasting Find By Availability With greater precision, Find By Availability becomes even more valuable when adding new work items or looking for a replacement resource. Just enter start and due dates and filter by project role to display the 5 resources with the most availability. 5.5 Improved Project Planning Using Templates Project templates are very powerful because they save everything: work item name, work item duration, work item responsible party, work item estimated effort, milestone dependencies, etc. We recommend you identify typical or common projects that are implemented on a repetitive basis so that you are not starting from scratch each time Additional References - Help article: Create Project Template - Help article: Apply Project Template 15

16 6 Users, Resources & Roles 6.1 Who Should Be a Roadmap User? First some definitions: Roadmap Users. Have a login account and can be assigned to tasks, etc. Roadmap Resources. Cannot login but can be assigned to tasks, etc. Basecamp People. Imported Basecamp people start out as resources, but can be migrated to Roadmap users The decision on who to invite to become a Roadmap user is both an organizational and philosophical consideration. Is your organization more centralized or decentralized when it comes to making estimates, updating estimates, or changing dates? If you plan to track actual time, do you want resources entering actual time themselves? Do resources or individual contributors know what tasks they should be working on, or do they need to always see an updated list, cross-project, and sorted by dates? If the latter, the Resource 360 page is a good tool. Users can set their Resource 360 page as their landing page upon login so they can stay focused. 6.2 Project Roles 16

17 7 What Are Work Items? Work items are planned units of work assigned to a resource with one exception: events. Work Item Milestone To-Do List To-Do Item Events Description A point-in-time like Code Complete or a phase with duration containing many to-do lists like Development. A milestone has a start date, due date (start & due date are the same if point-in-time), estimated effort, and one or more responsible party (in Basecamp it can only have one responsible party). A container for to-do items. To-do lists can be associated with a milestone or at the project level. To-do lists do not have a responsible party. A single unit of work with a start date, due date, estimated effort, and one responsible party. Events operate just like milestones except for two differences: 1) no responsible parties; and 2) no checkbox to mark it as complete or incomplete. Note: Work item events are not the same thing as calendar events. The former are for things like Client Meeting but have no effect on resource forecasting. The latter do impact resource forecasting. 17